Despite the local and national elections being generally peaceful, glitches were reported in some areas, according to Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año on Monday, May 9.
As of 4 p.m. there were 14 schools that reported vote counting machines (VCM) troubles in Laguna, 12 in Quezon, 15 in Rizal and two in Batangas.
Interviewed on Super Radyo dzBB, Año said that informed personnel cannot intervene with these issues unless requested by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
“May mga kaunting glitch na kaya namang ayusin ng Comelec. Ang atin namang mga unipormadong hanay ay hindi naman pupuwedeng pumasok dyan until i-request ng Comelec (There were slight glitches that the Comelec can fix. Our uniformed personnel cannot just intervene unless requested by the Comelec),’’ Año explained.
In Region 4-A, several schools had reported issues with their VCMs in the polling precincts with some authorities requesting that they be repaired or replaced.
In the same report, Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said voters have "no choice" but to leave their ballots to the members of the Electoral Board if the VCMs in their precincts are malfunctioning.
Garcia said more than 1,800 VCMs have malfunctioned, broken down into:
Paper jam - 940
Rejected ballots - 606
VCM scanner - 158
VCM printer not printing - 87
Not printing properly - 76
However, Garcia noted that all these issues were ‘resolved.’ (Chito A. Chavez)